TAMPA, Fla. – If you’re following this Eastern Conference Final closely, you might as well go ahead and clear your schedule for next Thursday night.
That’s when Game 7 between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning is scheduled.
It’s not currently necessary, but it probably will be.
The way the Lightning responded here in Game 4 all but guaranteed it. They hadn’t played particularly well the previous two games and were backed into a corner. On Friday night, Tampa built a 4-0 lead by the second intermission and gutted through a furious Penguins push over the final 20 minutes to even the series.
“We’re a good character team,” said defenceman Anton Stralman. “I think we know our weaknesses and we know how to change from game to game if something was bad before. We certainly did tonight.
“I thought we upped our game, all over the ice, all three zones. Battle levels, everything.”
The biggest difference was the energy and pace they played with. The attention to details. The will.
The Lightning have built up a lot of belief with the number of big games they’ve won the last two years and know how to bring out their best when the lights get brightest. Even after Pittsburgh scored three times in 12 minutes to make it 4-3 in the third period, they didn’t blink.
“I didn’t think we lost control of the game,” said defenceman Victor Hedman, who had two assists. “I think we played pretty good, and (goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy) made some big saves for us. There was no panic on the bench.”
“We were calm,” added teammate Ondrej Palat. “We were talking to relax a little bit. Just don’t get nervous, just play our game. We did a good job.”
And so now we head back to Pittsburgh with no clear difference between these teams heading into Game 5 on Sunday. They are built in a similar manner and have each enjoyed stretches of dominance.
They are both extremely fast and capable of generating a ton of offence – they combined for 30 shots during a blinding first period on Friday night – which kind of leaves you with the feeling that last shot might win when all of the dust eventually settles on this series.
Keeping composure will also be a must.
That point was hammered home after Penguins defenceman Kris Letang cost his team in this game by taking two penalties at once just past the midway point. That allowed Jonathan Drouin to make it 3-0 on the ensuing four-minute power play.
“Yeah, we’d like him to handle that differently,” said Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan. “He’s too important to our team, and that’s what I told him. And every team we play against goes after him, and so for the most part here this post-season, he’s had great composure and playing the game the right way.”
The questions now largely shift to the Penguins, who lost defenceman Trevor Daley to a lower-body injury after taking a hit from Ryan Callahan in the second period. He was spotted leaving Amalie Arena on crutches.
If it’s a long-term issue, that would be a major blow to the blue line.
There will also be a decision to be made in goal after Marc-Andre Fleury replaced Matt Murray for the final period. Murray has been a rock in helping the Penguins get this far, but he’s given up 11 goals to the Lightning in this series.
Heading into this night all of the heat had been on Tampa, and they ended up leading from start to finish with Callahan tipping home a shot 27 seconds in.
“You want them to say, ‘OK, let’s make a stand,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said of his team. “We got embarrassed at home in Game 3, let’s make a stand. And you can’t ask for anything more than Callahan scoring the first shift.
“Twenty-seven seconds in — I don’t think anybody sat down yet, and they didn’t need to.”
After grinding through 100-plus games apiece this season, the Lightning and Penguins are now down to a best-of-three for the right to play for the Stanley Cup.
Pittsburgh has been the NHL’s hottest team since the Christmas break. Tampa is a battle-tested bunch that has consistently overcome injuries, illness and just about everything else put in its way this season.
One of them will have a chance to finish off the other by the time we get back to Amalie Arena next week for Game 6, but it won’t be the least bit surprising if this series goes the distance. These are two class outfits capable of sublime hockey.
“They’re a really good team, but so are we,” said Hedman. “And it’s going to be a battle all the way in, I think.”
Just as it should be.